Monday, December 2, 2013

Fraser Coal Port - am I the only one?

Let’s just put it all on the table. One – I’m probably not going to make too many
friends with this post. Two – I have worked
at a coal mine. I spent an eight-month
co-op job at Fording River Operations near Elkford, BC, some 10 years ago while working on my degree. I studied mechanical engineering, so I was
working with the equipment as opposed to the process, but I got my hands dirty
in the industry. My first job after
university was in the mining industry as a contractor, and among the many mines
I worked with, a number were coal.

As you probably already know, the Fraser
Surrey Docks, under Port Metro Vancouver have proposed building a coal-terminal
on the south shore of the Fraser. This
has led to much writing of letters, waving of signs, and rending of
garments. The objections have been
manifold, but primarily can be distilled down to a few main points.

The health and nuisance effects
of coal dust from the trains, transfer, and barges

Diesel pollution from the coal
trains

Emergency access and traffic
concerns from the coal trains

Do these things need to be addressed? Absolutely.
And according to the environmental assessment,
they are being addressed through standard industry practices. Is that enough? Given Metro Vancouver’s position as a major
coal port already, I think it is.

Why I think a mountain is being made out of
this molehill is this: the Fraser coal
terminal practically speaking is insignificant.
Westshore Terminals,
the Roberts Bank terminal, shipped 27.3 million tonnes of coal in 2011. Neptune in North Vancouver is looking to ship 18 million. The
four-million proposed by Fraser-Surrey docks is minor in comparison – it
won’t change significantly the amount of coal dust flying around Metro Vancouver,
and we’re talking one additional daily train on top of 70 in
Metro Vancouver – emergency access and locomotive pollution are weak arguments
to make for this.

And as much as everyone is demonizing coal
dust and the lack of understanding how small amounts of it affects health, coal towns have been around a long
time and the review of their health have been inconclusive at best.

The big gap in the Environmental
Assessment, as New Westminster Citizen of the Year, Environmental Geoscientist, and all around entertaining blogger Patrick Johnstone adeptly pointed out, is greenhouse gas emissions. The Port says it’s outside their scope – some say
that’s not good enough; I say it’s not the Port’s call to make.

As a country we have said burning coal is
still acceptable. B.C. doesn’t have any,
but in six out of ten provinces we burn coal for power (Manitoba uses its single coal fired boiler for emergency use only). We burn coal for steelmaking. It is hypocritical
for us to say we can burn coal, but you can’t.
If as a country we are unwilling to stop burning coal, it is unfair and
unjust to deny that opportunity to others.
(On the other hand saying a product is too hazardous for us to use butokay to ship out to the rest of the world is pretty damn sketchy. Additional disclaimer – as a teenager I had a
pen-pal from Asbestos, Quebec. What can
I say – I love their accent).

This is effectively trying to legislate
another country by fiat. If the US
called Canada one day and said “We need to stop global warming, and you guys already
withdrew from Kyoto so we’re not going to send you any more
oil,” while they continued to buy SUVs by the bucket and sell oil to Mexico, we’d
be rightfully pissed. Getting our own
house in order, leading by example, not being hypocrites – let’s do things
right.

Secondly, if we are concerned with local pollution
from trains (and we should be), the right approach isn’t to stop one more train
containing stuff we happen to not like.
The approach should be to back out to a regional level and assess what maximum
level of train, truck, ship, and automobile traffic can we support at our
pollution limits, and how do we drive traffic down below that. Lo and behold, Metro Vancouver has done part
of this! Metro Vancouver has an AirQuality Management plan that provides the targets.

The Air Quality Management Plan’s vision is
“Health, clean and clear air for current and future generations.” (suitably fuzzy and vague) and its strategies include “Reduce emissions of and public exposure to diesel
particulate matter,” “Reduce air contaminant emissions from industrial, commercial
and agricultural sources…,” “residential sources,” and “cars, trucks and buses.”
Other strategies include increasing public engagement, partner with other
agencies, reducing carbon footprints.

Surprisingly for a government plan, it has
some actual performance metrics in there – exceedances of air quality objectives,
hours with Air Quality Health index in the High/Low category, and some
percentages to track the year over year change.
While it would be difficult work I’m sure, we should be able to model
the regional emission sources and validate that against currently measured air
pollution. From there, we can assess
what level of industry and transport the region can support (or how much we
need to reduce) to be within our targets for air quality. As technology improves and emission sources
get smaller we can allow additional development, create more stringent targets,
or some combination of the two.

Then we can actually answer the question of
can the region support one more train per day.
Or a waste incinerator. It can
also drive policy – we can model trade-offs on truck, train, heavy equipment
and industry to see the best way to reduce diesel particulate matter. At that means we can make informed decisions
on the issues instead of leaping to a panic.

Given all that, I am in favour of the
proposed facility as it is currently given.
As a country, we are still burning coal – until we decide otherwise it’s
not our place to condemn others for doing the same. As a region,
we are a coal port (among other things).
Singling out this one port and 4 million tonnes while ignoring the 27
million at Roberts Bank smacks of NIMBYism.
One train per day and a 10% increase in coal through the region is not
going to significantly change the regional pollution situation. Local effects need to be managed, yes, and
the trains and port are using best practices as they stand. As those practices improve, we should
pressure them to keep up.

And none of this considers the benefits to
the recipients. All of North American
stands as a witness to the benefits electrification brings. To deny that benefit to another country is
imperialism – we know better than you what’s good for you, so you can’t have
it. Is there a cost to coal powered
electricity? Does it need to be weighed against the benefits? Yes, but it’s not our place
to make that decision for another country.